Business of Media
Lisa Wilkinson taking expensive risk ‘going back for her hat’
Another battle looms for Lisa Wilkinson in her bid to overturn adverse findings against her by Justice Michael Lee in Bruce Lehrmann’s failed defamation case: who will pay for her latest legal foray, reports The Australian’s Stephen Rice.
The television presenter’s estranged employer, Network Ten, is already playing hardball on reimbursing the $1.8m in legal fees she racked up in defending the mammoth case with separate legal representation led by top defamation silk Sue Chrysanthou SC.
In April, following a trial believed to have cost at least $10m, Justice Lee found that, on the balance of probabilities Lehrmann raped Brittany Higgins in Parliament House in 2019.
TikTok lays out past efforts to address U.S. concerns
TikTok detailed on Thursday why it thinks the new federal law that could lead to a ban of the popular video app in January is unconstitutional, calling the legislation an “extraordinary restriction on speech,” reports The New York Times’ Sapna Maheshwari.
The company said that Congress did not consider the law — which would force TikTok’s Chinese owner to sell the popular social media app or face a ban in the United States — with nearly enough scrutiny and care.
At Cannes Lions ad festival, sports and AI loom larger than ever
Ad executives from around the world gathered this week at the annual Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity on the French Riviera to schmooze with clients over magnum bottles of rosé and face off over the industry’s most pressing topics—and pickleball, reports The Wall Street Journal’s Megan Graham.
The festival, which organizers said was attended by roughly 12,000 people, focused heavily on the encroachment of artificial intelligence on the creative industry. Another focus at the event was the increasing importance of sports for marketers, as ways to capture a broad audience tuned in at the same time have become rare.
News Brands
‘National campfire’ not so cosy: New chair’s speech puts ABC on notice
Kim Williams outlined an extensive list of areas for improvement and renewal in his first major speech as chair of the public broadcaster on Wednesday evening, a bid to restore the ABC after what he calls decades of fragmentation and dislocation, report Nine Publishing’s Calum Jaspan and Stephen Brook.
The speech, delivered as the inaugural Redmond Barry address at the Victorian State Library on Wednesday night, served as a pitch for increased funding and his vision to make the ABC the country’s “national campfire”.
Williams called for greater government funding – or as he termed it, investment.
Television
Should Paul Barry be the last journalist to host Media Watch?
The ABC’s resident monitor of the Australian media sector, Paul Barry, is almost out the door, and his departure leaves open the tantalising prospect of the public broadcaster shaking up the 15 minutes of TV dreaded by journalists and editors across the country, reports Nine Publishing’s Calum Jaspan.
Media Watch, which remains one of the ABC’s highest-rating shows, has been dishing out the pain to the sector for decades and Barry’s exit, revealed by this masthead, potentially opens the door for the public broadcaster to hand over the reins to someone outside the so-called media bubble.
The Bear has made the kitchen TV’s most dramatic setting. But it wasn’t the first
Ahead of its third season, the remarkable success of Christopher Storer’s Emmy-winning restaurant series The Bear has confirmed one indisputable fact: restaurants are the best setting for onscreen drama, reports Nine Publishing’s Robert Moran.
The mouthwatering food, the unchecked egos, the potential for spectacular triumph or crushing failure, the alarming proximity to fire and knives – The Bear, led by star Jeremy Allen White’s capable biceps, has shown that professional kitchens can usurp hospitals and police stations as the TV and film world’s ultimate high stakes environment, where tension can spring from the most unlikely source, like a kitchen printer spitting orders with relentless regularity.
What Sonia Kruger’s therapist told her when she couldn’t sleep over “awkward” Logies speech
Gold Logie winner Sonia Kruger admits she “berated [herself] for a long time,” over her now infamous acceptance speech at the 63rd TV Week Logie Awards, reports News Corp’s Mikaela Wilkes.
“I was having trouble sleeping,” Kruger said while hosting the Mercedes-Benz Sydney annual Women in Business lunch on Wednesday.
“I ended up talking to a therapist about it because I was not … I wasn’t letting up on myself at all about it.”
The 57-year-old Big Brother and The Voice presenter took home gold in August 2023, with 1.29 million Australians tuning in to the entertainment industry’s night of nights.